Zelensky Lashes Out at Trump for Excluding Ukrainians From Peace Talks

Shortly after the United States’ opening meeting with Russian officials on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine lashed out at the Trump administration’s negotiating tactics in his harshest terms yet for excluding Ukrainians from talks on their own country’s fate.

The meeting in Riyadh ended with an agreement to establish teams to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine and normalize relations, and with upbeat statements and pledges for closer ties between the United States and Russia — continuing a thaw in relations that Kyiv and European allies have found unnerving.

Mr. Zelensky protested his exclusion from the discussions by canceling his own planned trip to the Saudi capital.

“Decisions on how to end the war in Ukraine cannot be made without Ukraine, nor can any conditions be imposed,” Mr. Zelensky said from Turkey, where he had traveled as part of a planned tour of the Middle East. “We were not invited to this Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia. It was a surprise for us, I think for many others as well.”

Ukraine, he said, learned of plans for the gathering from the media. Mr. Zelensky suggested that he had intended to meet American officials after the gathering in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on a previously scheduled state visit to Saudi Arabia.

“I don’t know who will stay, who will leave, or who is planning to go where. To be honest, I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t want coincidences, and that’s why I will not go to Saudi Arabia.”

Ukraine has been seeking talks that would provide it protection against future aggression by Russia, with a commitment of membership in NATO or peacekeepers deployed into the war zone. Ukraine has also asked nations to consider prosecutions for Russian war crimes and reparations for a conflict that has leveled whole cities and killed and wounded tens of thousands of civilians, as well as about a million soldiers on both sides.

Those kinds of demands were nowhere near the conversation in Riyadh, where American negotiators instead focused on “the incredible opportunities” that would come with an improved relationship with Moscow, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But Mr. Zelensky insisted that the terms of any settlement negotiated without Ukraine “cannot be imposed” on Ukraine.

The pointed remarks represented a shift from Mr. Zelensky, who has tried to walk a fine line in the face of Trump administration pronouncements, avoiding direct criticism. He has offered praise in recent speeches and interviews, over the weekend telling NBC that President Trump could succeed in pressuring Russia into a settlement because the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, feared him.

But as the meeting in Riyadh came together, he sharpened his criticism of the negotiating process.

In an interview with the German broadcaster ARD on Monday, Mr. Zelensky said the United States was seeking a quick cease-fire by “saying things that Putin really likes.” The aim of the American negotiators, he said, was to move quickly to a presidential summit with Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin and announce a truce.

“But what they want, just a cease-fire, is not success,” Mr. Zelensky said.

The United States and European nations, he has said, should first outline the terms of postwar security in Ukraine, and he has insisted that Russia accept security guarantees to prevent violations or a resumption of the war.

Mr. Zelensky compared the Russia-U.S. talks that opened in Saudi Arabia to the negotiated end to America’s military presence in Afghanistan, which opened the door to the Taliban’s return to power after a 20-year American war. The United States negotiated directly with the Taliban, cutting out the American-backed Afghan government.

“I do not think that anybody is interested in Afghanistan 2.0,” Mr. Zelensky said in an interview broadcast before Saudi talks ended. “We remember what happened in Afghanistan when the Americans left in a hurry.” That pullout, he said, was an example of “what can happen when somebody doesn’t finish, doesn’t think and leaves in a hurry.”

Mr. Zelensky has also been rebutting accusations from Mr. Putin that he is an illegitimate leader because Ukraine has not held elections (it cannot do so while it is under martial law).

Asked whether the United States supports Russia’s demand that Ukraine hold elections before any final peace settlement, Mr. Trump said it was his administration that is pressing for Ukraine to have new elections soon, not Russia.

“Yeah, I would say that, you know, when they want a seat at the table, wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have to say, like, it’s been a long time since we’ve had an election?” he said. “That’s not a Russia thing, that’s something coming from me and coming from many other countries also. You know, Ukraine is just being wiped out.”

Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Zelensky’s approval rating had declined because of the destruction in Ukraine and falsely suggested that the Ukrainian president was to blame for the devastation caused by Russia.

In a sign the negotiations in Riyadh brought no immediate change in how the war is being fought, antiaircraft gunfire rattled in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, to repel Russian exploding drones about seven hours after the discussions wrapped up.

The United States has been the largest single supplier of military and financial aid to Ukraine since Russia’s all-out invasion in 2022, though the European Union nations collectively have provided more. Several European heads of state, also excluded from the talks, convened on Monday in Paris to gauge what military assistance or peacekeeping troops European countries could commit to secure a possible cease-fire.

Ukraine depends on the United States for satellite intelligence and air defenses, including Patriot interceptors, which are its only reliable shield against Russian ballistic missiles. Ground troops are less dependent on American weaponry, as combat has evolved during the war. Ukraine’s domestically made exploding drones now inflict a majority of casualties on Russian troops.

Over the course of the war, Ukraine has fought Russia’s far larger and better equipped army to a near standstill, though momentum is now clearly in Russia’s favor. Since November 2022, about half of 1 percent of Ukrainian land has changed hands in violent but largely static combat. Russia is now creeping forward in a bloody but slow-moving offensive in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

“At this point, it is clear that neither side will win this war on the battlefield,” Mr. Zelensky said on Tuesday. “Russia wanted this, it failed. No one believed in Ukraine, yet we proved ourselves and defended our independence at an incredibly high cost in the lives of our soldiers, our people. This proves that a shift toward diplomacy must happen, but it must lead to a just peace.”

Mr. Zelensky has said he hopes to reach an agreement with the Trump administration that would exchange a share of profits from natural resources for military aid. A Trump administration proposal had demanded half of the government’s proceeds from natural resources, an official familiar with the proposal said.

Mr. Zelensky had balked at the deal, saying it did not detail any security commitments from the United States in exchange.

“This is a very important issue for us, and we are highly interested in signing an agreement” with the United States, Mr. Zelensky said in a video call with reporters in Kyiv on Monday from Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Zelensky, though, said that Europe was also interested in investing in Ukraine. “I told our American partners that we also have offers from Europe,” he said. Mr. Zelensky has said any deal on resources in Ukraine should consider other backers of the Ukrainian war effort.

Edward Wong contributed reporting from Washington, and Maria Varenikova from Kyiv.